Tuesday, 7 April 2020

Brian McGilloway Q&A

Last week I reviewed the new release from Brian McGilloway, the New York Times Bestselling author, with his new thriller The Last Crossing. A stand alone novel that looks at how actions can have ever lasting consequences.

After excitedly reading the book, the author granted me the pleasure of an interview which I can share with you now.

What
was the genesis of The Last Crossing following your series of books, why a
standalone novel now?

With
each book, I simply write the story I want to tell. Usually, that fits in to
one of the two series, but with this book it didn’t. I liked the idea of
looking at 3 ordinary people who do something terrible for what they all
believe to be justified reasons and who have to face that again 30 years later.
I was interested in how each would have changed, how what they had done would
have changed them, and the manner in which each had attempted or failed to
reconcile themselves with what they had done. From the beginning, I knew this
wasn’t going to be a police procedural, nor did I want it to be.

How
easy was it to juggle the two timelines was it like writing two stories at same
time or separately then edited?

No,
I wrote one straight into the next using concatenation where the final phrase
of one chapter opens the next. It was to create continuity between past and
present and also to link the two more closely. It’s a technique used in a
medieval poem called The Pearl which I’ve tried to use a few times before –
most obviously in Little Girl Lost where I had two narratives connected in this
way in the first draft. After hitting a block about three quarters of the way
through, I realised it wasn’t working for that book and removed both it and the
entire second narrative. I’ve been wanting to use it since and thankfully, in
this book, the technique suited the structure and theme more obviously and
finally worked for me. I found using it helped create impetus in the actual
writing of the novel.

You
are from Londonderry, the Troubles was more a way of life than a snapshot, was
it easy to write about from memory having been born there?

I
love Derry and am very proud to have grown up there. It suffered a lot through
the years of violence to the extent that its personality and sense of identity
have been changed by it in some ways. That reflects the way in which all of us
who grew up through it were similarly changed by it in ways – some more
obviously than others. The book, I hope, reflects the various gradations of
impact the violence had on the various characters.

The
story is about looking back at life's regrets do you have any?

I
suppose we all have moments of wondering ‘what if?’ – the Road Not Taken
moments. With the story between Tony and Karen, I’d say the influence of Tom
Waits’ Martha is there – someone looking back on how their life’s course has
gone in a completely different course from the one they’d expected and how we
react when faced with that realisation as we meet someone we once loved.
Larkin’s Dockery and Son deals with a similar moment of terrible clarity. My
own regrets tend to focus on friendships lost more than choices not made – we
all make our choices and live with them after all. I’m very lucky and blessed
in so many ways, it would be churlish to regret.

What
are your hopes for the book?

It’s
a book of which I’m quite protective. I just hope it finds any kind of
readership and finds kindred souls to whom it speaks. It’s a challenge to get
people reading Northern Irish fiction, so finding someone who’d not ordinarily
have read fiction from here would be a bonus!

Did
the speed and economy of the book come from editing or down to the jumping back
and forth of timelines to induce this whip crack nature of looking back and
forward ?

I
suspect it’s a reflection of how I write. The book was written very quickly
once I got started – and benefitted from the support of a number of friends and
crime writing peers who read it and encouraged me along the way. I tend to
write in short bursts – maybe an hour or so per day – and aim to keep things
moving. I get bored with slow narratives myself, if I’m honest.

Do
you miss teaching full time?

No
– I still teach full time. I took a sabbatical for two years when my kids were
younger to help look after them but have been back teaching for 5 years now. I
still love it – though it does make writing a book a year almost impossible for
me at least, thus the longer break between books. The characterisation of the
younger character in the novel who drives the other three around was informed
by great advice from a group of my former students who’ve all kept in contact
with each other and me. It’s a privilege to introduce young minds to great
literature for the first time and to spend your days talking about books you
love.

What
advice would you give to any would be authors?

Trust
your instincts. Read widely, but don’t try to guess the market or write for the
market – instead produce a work of which you are proud and can stand over and
it’ll find a readership eventually. Writing is about connecting with a reader –
the size of the readership will vary from book to book, but the essential
connection stays the same and that’s the important bit.

How
have you coped with self-isolation?

We’ve
four kids so with six of us in the house altogether it’s been pretty busy. Plus
I’m still teaching remotely, so the days pass quickly enough. I’ve great plans
to get another book written and to read loads: I’m chipping away slowly at both…